When people in positions of power are shielded from public scrutiny or from any level of accountablility they tend to escalate. Example - "a few bad apples", as baby Bush liked to say, were responsible for all the atrocities perpetrated at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Were they held in check by any scrutiny? No!  In fact the very officials who gave them license to do what they did also wanted to hide the results from those of us footing the bill or having to live with the fall out.

    Locally there is an extension of that principle at work. Police, some of whom are ex-military (read trained to kill), get all wound up in an adrenaline rush when they are not instantly obeyed. Then comes the resisting arrest, obstructing justice and the use of "pain restraints", tasers and sometimes even guns. Where is the public accountability? Well, contrary to events at the federal level we have a pretty good network of eyes & ears, not to mention vicitims, who keep tabs on how OPD protects "The Olympia Way".

    To bring this to a more coherent level, a number of people want to join together in a discussion of how we want to be "protected" by the police. Even more specifically what role do we want the OPD to play in our community. Do we allow them to put people face down on the street with a knee in their back if they are not instantly obeyed?  Do we allow them to force women to strip in front of male officers and cadets? Do we allow the use of tasers to the point of death? Do we want to be pepper-sprayed for exerting our very right of freedom of speech that  the SUPPORT OUR TROOPS folks tell us is why we invaded and now occupy Iraq & Afghanistan (but not Saudi Arabia)? Do we want to live in fear of our police?

    Is there interest in creating a community forum to get some of the repressed anger out, before more bricks are thrown?  Could this become a way of coordinating interests towards sharing with elected and appointed officials how exactly we would like our city to be governed?  Many folks have said voting is not enough. Jim Hightower, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, John Kennedy, Thom Hartman, the people of Egypt.....   a long list of folks have for years been advocating for citizen invovlement. This is an opportunity to become involved.

   Do we wait for the next stupid move and then wait some more for the follow-up apologies, which are not always forthcoming?

      An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.